Early defence.

[Theoatmeal2 (OP)]

I did a conventional start and consider building this:

Diana class Patrol Craft (P)      4,000 tons       108 Crew       358.6 BP       TCS 80    TH 240    EM 0
3000 km/s      Armour 4-22       Shields 0-0       HTK 23      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 12
Maint Life 2.13 Years     MSP 112    AFR 64%    IFR 0.9%    1YR 33    5YR 497    Max Repair 120.00 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 4 months    Morale Check Required   

Eurojet M-240NP (1)    Power 240.0    Fuel Use 90.21%    Signature 240.00    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 302,000 Litres    Range 15.1 billion km (58 days at full power)

Rebeiro Armaments 10cm Railgun V10/C1 (4x4)    Range 10,000km     TS: 3,000 km/s     Power 3-1     RM 10,000 km    ROF 15       
Atlas Electronic Systems FC-1 Beam Fire Control (1)     Max Range: 80,000 km   TS: 3,000 km/s     66 56 47 38 28 19 9 0 0 0
Homberg-Schneider Pebble Bed Reactor R4 (1)     Total Power Output 4.2    Exp 5%

Atlas Electronic Systems M-32 Search Sensor (1)     GPS 3000     Range 32.1m km    Resolution 100

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

I`m just about ready to build my first jump capable ships and need some protection. Missile ships are for the time being useless due to low tech level.

What do you use for early defence?

[Jorgen_CAB]

This is a perfectly fine early tech level ship... Railguns is probably the best weapon system early on for an all purpose type of ship. It require very little research to be decently effective as a defensive ships. Researching up to 15cm Railguns is not terribly expensive even if you don't plan on using railguns much later on in a campaign.

In my last "one faction" camaign I relied on low tech railguns on ships and plasma cannons for planetary defence systems and railguns for PD. The benefit of plasma is good planetary defence weapons and also give cheap ground combat penetration values.

I would probably advice you to put a resolution "1" sensor on the ship instead or in addition of a resolution "100" sensor. You really don't need a long range high resolution sensor... I would probably rather fit the ship with a small boat bay and a sensor scout to fill that role, or have a variant with some hangar space for additional scout ships.

[nuclearslurpee]

For purely defensive purposes I would at least research Capacitor 2 and get ROF 10. While your missile tech may be awful the NPRs will be capable of perfectly good missiles including the dreaded AMM spam, so you want at least ROF 10 to ensure nothing leaks through the point defense as long as you have enough ships.

I also second the comment about the sensor, particularly as RES 1 is pretty much necessary for missile defense as again the NPRs will not be hampered by a conventional start.

[Migi]

If you're only worried about shooting down missiles that's probably decent, as long as you have enough.
I'll second the comments about capacitor 2 and swapping to a res 1 sensor.
The other thing I'd point out is that the onboard MSP doesn't quite cover the 120 max repair.

It might be worth having a sensor varient with some basic 50T passives and a longer range active sensor, unless you're intending on keeping them close to a tracking station.

However if you encounter enemy beam ships or want to blow up whatever is shooting missiles at you then you will probably want some missiles, you just need to fire a lot more to compensate for them being terrible.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

This ship will be dramatically more effective with a range increase for the railguns. Keeping within 10kkm can get awkward if the enemy is also maneuvering; adding more range will reduce the number of times you end up out of range by accident

[SevenOfCarina]

Let me just present a dissenting opinion - the design is workable (after adding a resolution-1 sensor), but I'm not sure what exactly it's supposed to do.

With a conventional start, you're near-guaranteed to be technologically behind your opponents. Trying to get into a beam brawl in open space with warships that are more advanced and likely much larger is suicide, plain and simple. Commerce-raiding with beam ships is still workable, but this design has insufficient endurance (you'd want 12-24 months) to be useful in that role.

Without missiles, your ships will have no way of actually destroying enemy warships without getting utterly annihilated. The sole exception is probably in a jump-point defence scenario, in which case I'd recommend maxing out the engine boost, reducing range to a bit more than the round trip to the jump point you want to defend from the nearest colony, raising crew endurance to 24 months or so, and swapping out the railguns for as many plasma carronades as you can stuff in. If I understand this correctly, you're at the ~1,000 RP weapons techs - carronades are by far the best choice at this point in terms of damage at range.

Now, that design does make some sense as an anti-missile escort, but there are certain problems here too. Ground-based STO railguns make significantly more sense for homeworld missile defence (I'd wager you could build an entire regiment of STOs for the cost of one ship), and for defending vital colonies from bombardment. Add a few batteries of STO plasma carronades and planetary invasions become pretty hard. Hence, by elimination, these patrol corvettes would be most suited to performing deep-space escort duties and for reinforcing colonial missile defence.

The problem is that they're not optimised for that. The ship has four layers of armour, which is probably doing bad things to the mass budget at your tech level (I'm guessing 6/HS or so?) - I'd recommend slashing this to two and using the freed-up space for more railguns (I think you should be able to fit 2-3 more?). Point-defence capacity is way more important than damage resistance if you're defending something, and those extra layers will probably only protect the ship against an extra ~10 missiles. This is worth it if they're fighting alone, but then this ship exists for the sole purpose of defending itself while being simultaneously unable to attack anything. Small EM and thermal sensors are probably a good idea (EM especially, they'll give you significant warning against hostile sensors, which tend to be really noisy). You should probably also raise the crew endurance to ~12 months, or else you'll be forced to pull these ships back from deployments way too often.

[xenoscepter]

 - I tend to avoid warships before Ion Tech on the whole, but I have certainly dabbled in, built and even fielded warships before that.

 - This post has additional fluff and the technological requirements for the designs below: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10971.0

 - Posted EDITED for accuracy.

Project Starshield:

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Project Starshield class Gunboat      3,000 tons       82 Crew       237.6 BP       TCS 60    TH 150    EM 0
2500 km/s      Armour 3-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 19      Sensors 1/1/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 7
Maint Life 5.10 Years     MSP 246    AFR 41%    IFR 0.6%    1YR 16    5YR 237    Max Repair 75 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 2 months    Morale Check Required   

Aliiance Drives NCET-150/1250 (1)    Power 150    Fuel Use 79.81%    Signature 150    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 175,000 Litres    Range 13.2 billion km (60 days at full power)

PSS-E1/Laser (120mm) (1)    Range 40,000km     TS: 2,500 km/s     Power 4-2     RM 10,000 km    ROF 10       
PSS-E1/Railgun (100mm) (1x4)    Range 20,000km     TS: 2,500 km/s     Power 3-3     Accuracy Modifier 100%     RM 20,000 km    ROF 5       
PSS-E1/FCS (PRIMARY) (1)     Max Range: 40,000 km   TS: 2,500 km/s     47 31 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
PSS-E1/FCS (PD/AUX) (1)     Max Range: 20,000 km   TS: 2,500 km/s     31 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
PSS-E1/PW Reactor System (1)     Total Power Output 5    Exp 5%

Mk. I Experimental GravScope (Active Detection Module) (1)     GPS 1     Range 1.3m km    MCR 137.4k km    Resolution 1
Mk. I Experimental GravScope (TH Calibration Module) (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  7.9m km
Mk. I Experimental GravScope (EM Calibration Module) (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  7.9m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
 - The most comparable one to yours, uses railguns as well. This one has Capacitor 3, with one 12cm Railgun and two 10cm Railguns. This ship is 1,000 Tons lighter than your Diana-Class, has 25% less armor, roughly 15% less speed and half the endurance, but more than three times the firepower, the ability to fire on two targets at once, and the ability to conduct Point Defense fire with the 10cm Railguns while simultaneously firing back at enemies with the 12cm. Not the most useful feature, but a backup FCS can be a prudent addition overall. The Starshield is also powered by Nuclear Thermal engines, if those were replaced with equivalent size Nuclear Pulse engines, I'd reckon it would be much faster than the Diana-Class too.

 - EDIT: The Diana-Class has four railguns, not one, I misread it. Likewise the Starshield-Class has one 12cm LASER and ONE 10cm Railgun, not one 12cm Railgun and two 10cm Railguns. Thus the Starshield-Class has roughly half the firepower, not 300% as previously stated.

Project Starlance:

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Project Starlance class Gunboat      3,000 tons       80 Crew       241.4 BP       TCS 60    TH 150    EM 0
2500 km/s      Armour 3-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 19      Sensors 1/1/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 8
Maint Life 5.54 Years     MSP 260    AFR 36%    IFR 0.5%    1YR 14    5YR 214    Max Repair 75 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 2 months    Morale Check Required   

Aliiance Drives NCET-150/1250 (1)    Power 150    Fuel Use 79.81%    Signature 150    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 175,000 Litres    Range 13.2 billion km (60 days at full power)

PSS-E1/Laser (120mm) (1)    Range 40,000km     TS: 2,500 km/s     Power 4-2     RM 10,000 km    ROF 10       
PSL-E1/HPM (120mm) (1)    Range 40,000km     TS: 2,500 km/s     Power 4-2     RM 40,000 km    ROF 10       
Guardian Fire Control System (PRIMARY) (1)     Max Range: 40,000 km   TS: 2,500 km/s     47 31 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
PSL-E1/PW Reactor System (1)     Total Power Output 4    Exp 5%

Mk. II Experimental GravScope (Active Detection Module) (1)     GPS 1     Range 1.3m km    MCR 137.4k km    Resolution 1
Mk. II Experimental GravScope (TH Calibration Module) (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  7.9m km
Mk. II Experimental GravScope (EM Calibration Module) (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  7.9m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
 - Same deal here for the most part, although the HPM could knock out a Diana-Class' sensors, while the laser fires 30% faster and both weapons would seriously outrange it. A good ship killer with Electronic Hardening to help it resist HPMs, both this and the Starshield-Class also have more than double the Maintenance life of a Diana-Class while costing almost 100 BP less. Likewise both of these dedicate more mass than a Diana-Class to their respective reactors, while producing almost the same output as one.

 - EDIT: The Diana-Class' reactors are very sufficient for four 10cm Railguns, again, I mis-read the design.


EDIT: Old info, some incorrect and some outdated. Left for posterity.

Off-Topic: show

--- So, now to suggest improvements. First off, your reactor only needs to put out 1 point of power, your quite literally producing more than 400% of the power you need. You could free up some mass by using a smaller reactor. Your 10cm Railgun is mated to an 80,000 km Beam FCS, while having a 10,000 km range. On the one hand that's gonna be one hell of an accurate gun, on the other hand... most of that accuracy is wasted. Replacing that 10cm Railgun with a 12cm Railgun with 20,000 km range and Capacitor 2 would give you 50% faster Rate of Fire, 400% more range and could still be run on a reactor that has half the output of them one you currently have mounted. Alternatively, a dropping some armor and adding three more of the 10cm Railguns you already have would allow you to keep that reactor by making use of the other 3 points of output and give you a pretty meaty salvo to boot. I'd recommend upgrading to the 20,000 km Railgun range anyway, though, simply because of Aurora's mechanics... it doesn't like 10,000 km for anything except Final Fire PD.

 --- The good parts of the Diana-Class though. This ship is pretty quick, not that quick, but it's certainly not slow. 15 billion km range is nothing to sniff at and four layers of armor is quite good for such a small warship. She'll take 12cm Railgun / laser fire and Strength 3 Warheads without venting atmo... and that's pretty damn good for her speed and range. That Beam FCS is overbuilt to hell and back, but that also means you could refit these ships quite well as newer, more long range guns come online. You could put a 60,000 km, Strength 2 Particle Beam on there with a smaller reactor and have a pretty good defensive ship. Four months of deployment is also pretty damn good, and while the MSP is quite low, the IFR is 0.9%, which is damn good.

 --- I'd consider perhaps removing some Engineering spaces, replacing one or two with MSP storage. Use either a smaller FCS or bigger guns. Use either a smaller reactor or mount more guns to use that excess power. And maybe lose a layer of armor, or just drop some deployment time. You have 120 days of deployment, but only 58 days of fuel. You could save some weight there too, to mount more guns etc. It's a solid start, but it needs some tweaking unfortunately. Still, I wouldn't worry too much about building the "best" ship or even a "very good" ship. Build the ships you want to build... just don't complain if they get blown to hell, ok?

 --- EDIT: Although I mis-read the class at first, and my own for that matter, my thoughts remain largely the same. Reduced deployment, more MSP and/or less Engineering Spaces, potentially one less layer of armor, potentially smaller Beam FCS. You can get away with about 40,000~60,000 km FCS range and do just fine. The FCS as given is very accurate though and not really a problem, so much as something you could get away with slimming down if you so chose. More fuel would be a good thing to have, maybe doubling it to match your deployment time, that way you go further before needing a re-fuel. As is, to go 4 months out, you'll either need a tanker or to stop at a re-fueling point along the way. Re-fueling takes time in C#, so this could be a problem if time is of the essence... and when it comes to defense, it so very often is. If you're going to use a tanker though, the 4 months is advantageous. Again, not a problem per se, but rather something you could either beef up to improve the ship, or slim down to free up mass for something that would.

[Veneke]

I use pretty similar (but slightly larger) railgun frigates to start my navy as well. I think people have caught the big ticket items (ROF 5/10 would be better, res-1 sensor, better align MSP with max repair, etc). The only other thing I'd add which I don't see mentioned is to consider having two engines. Probably more of a doctrine thing, but due to maintenance breakdowns + potential for combat damage I usually end up ensuring that all warships have two engines. Just in case.
 
The suggestion to improve the railgun range is interesting. In practice I've never felt that the difference between 10k and 20k range for these types of ships matters all that much. The basic 10cm/10k railgun does exactly what you want it to do - good early point defence - and it does it really well.
 
My very similar starting railgun frigate from my most recent campaign (far from flawless btw!) is coped below. I mostly end up using these as system patrol ships, satisfy PPV demands, and provide initial missile defences for the fleet. To be fair, they don't stay in a combat fleet role for very long - I tend to replace them with 12k tonne railgun missile destroyers relatively quickly.
 

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Dylan class Frigate      5,995 tons       151 Crew       587.9 BP       TCS 120    TH 400    EM 0
3336 km/s      Armour 4-29       Shields 0-0       HTK 42      Sensors 5/5/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 21
Maint Life 2.01 Years     MSP 461    AFR 288%    IFR 4.0%    1YR 153    5YR 2,292    Max Repair 100 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 9 months    Morale Check Required   

Kraus MNP200-25 Engine (2)    Power 400    Fuel Use 63.25%    Signature 200    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 400,000 Litres    Range 19 billion km (65 days at full power)

Woodward & Evans 3" QF Close-in Railgun (7x4)    Range 10,000km     TS: 5,000 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 10,000 km    ROF 5       
Trawinski-Maczka T4 Close-in Gun Fire Control (2)     Max Range: 20,000 km   TS: 4,000 km/s     50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Bazaine-Preher Pebble Bed Reactor R9 (3)     Total Power Output 27.3    Exp 5%

Bergström Electronics Industries Active Sensor R18-100 (1)     GPS 1000     Range 18.5m km    Resolution 100
Bergström Electronics Industries R4-50 Missile Detection Array (1)     GPS 10     Range 4m km    MCR 359k km    Resolution 1
Bergström Electronics Industries EM Sensor EM1.0-5.0 (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  17.7m km
Bergström Electronics Industries Thermal Sensor TH1.0-5.0 (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  17.7m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

[nuclearslurpee]

stuff

Just to point out, the OP's ship has 4x4 railguns, not 1x4, which makes many of your comments incorrect - notably, the Starshield gunboat does not have 3x the firepower (actually about 3/4, which is in line with the tonnage difference), and the R4 reactor is the correct power output for the class.

Your 10cm Railgun is mated to an 80,000 km Beam FCS, while having a 10,000 km range. On the one hand that's gonna be one hell of an accurate gun, on the other hand... most of that accuracy is wasted.

Hardly wasted. Since minimum range is 10k km, the 80k km BFC range ensures 88% base accuracy, while a 20k km BFC gives only 50% accuracy. Given that OP's ship has four railguns I'd say the extra tonnage is very much worth it in terms of effective fire volume especially for PD purposes.

I usually try to get around 80k to 100k range for a PD fire control to get close to 90% base accuracy. Trying to push to 95% is not economical, but the difference between 90% and 50% (for 20k km range) is well worth it.

Replacing that 10cm Railgun with a 12cm Railgun with 20,000 km range and Capacitor 2 would give you 50% faster Rate of Fire, 400% more range and could still be run on a reactor that has half the output of them one you currently have mounted.

Besides the reactor bit already mentioned, this is not how railguns work. A 12 cm railgun requires 6 power, not 4, so Cap 2 would only give ROF 15 which is the same as what the given railgun has.

She'll take 12cm Railgun / laser fire and Strength 3 Warheads without venting atmo...

Four armor layers are actually proof against penetration by a 15 cm laser and any missile warhead below 24 damage, of course assuming no prior armor damage as enough effective DPS will shred any armor. It's a pretty good armor breakpoint if you want a durable ship especially for a railgun fleet which relies on armor to win beam engagements.

or just drop some deployment time. You have 120 days of deployment, but only 58 days of fuel.

I constantly see people say to drop deployment time to match fuel consumption and I don't understand this. Do people not ever keep ships on station for an extended period away from a recreational center/colony? I think the deployment time is fine as it is to give you a buffer for picketing JPs, escort missions for slower commercial ships, etc. Cutting it to 60 days will only net about 35 tons anyways due to the cube-root dependence of the crew quarters requirement.

I apologize as I'm not meaning to pick too hard on your post, but there's a lot of misinformation that could confuse OP or others.

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Dylan class Frigate      5,995 tons

This is a lovely ship but it could be far more beautiful with another 5,000 litres of fuel. 

[xenoscepter]

stuff

Just to point out, the OP's ship has 4x4 railguns, not 1x4, which makes many of your comments incorrect - notably, the Starshield gunboat does not have 3x the firepower (actually about 3/4, which is in line with the tonnage difference), and the R4 reactor is the correct power output for the class.

Your 10cm Railgun is mated to an 80,000 km Beam FCS, while having a 10,000 km range. On the one hand that's gonna be one hell of an accurate gun, on the other hand... most of that accuracy is wasted.

Hardly wasted. Since minimum range is 10k km, the 80k km BFC range ensures 88% base accuracy, while a 20k km BFC gives only 50% accuracy. Given that OP's ship has four railguns I'd say the extra tonnage is very much worth it in terms of effective fire volume especially for PD purposes.

I usually try to get around 80k to 100k range for a PD fire control to get close to 90% base accuracy. Trying to push to 95% is not economical, but the difference between 90% and 50% (for 20k km range) is well worth it.

Replacing that 10cm Railgun with a 12cm Railgun with 20,000 km range and Capacitor 2 would give you 50% faster Rate of Fire, 400% more range and could still be run on a reactor that has half the output of them one you currently have mounted.

Besides the reactor bit already mentioned, this is not how railguns work. A 12 cm railgun requires 6 power, not 4, so Cap 2 would only give ROF 15 which is the same as what the given railgun has.

She'll take 12cm Railgun / laser fire and Strength 3 Warheads without venting atmo...

Four armor layers are actually proof against penetration by a 15 cm laser and any missile warhead below 24 damage, of course assuming no prior armor damage as enough effective DPS will shred any armor. It's a pretty good armor breakpoint if you want a durable ship especially for a railgun fleet which relies on armor to win beam engagements.

or just drop some deployment time. You have 120 days of deployment, but only 58 days of fuel.

I constantly see people say to drop deployment time to match fuel consumption and I don't understand this. Do people not ever keep ships on station for an extended period away from a recreational center/colony? I think the deployment time is fine as it is to give you a buffer for picketing JPs, escort missions for slower commercial ships, etc. Cutting it to 60 days will only net about 35 tons anyways due to the cube-root dependence of the crew quarters requirement.

I apologize as I'm not meaning to pick too hard on your post, but there's a lot of misinformation that could confuse OP or others.

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Dylan class Frigate      5,995 tons

This is a lovely ship but it could be far more beautiful with another 5,000 litres of fuel. 

 --- Looking back there are an absolutely atrocious number of typos in my post, so the feedback was certainly welcome. As for durability mis-calculations, I wasn't sure about those, so I was working on the VB6 model, plus I had outright incorrect info, since it would be a Strength 9 warhead in that case anyway. The durability was also assuming a non-penetrating hit, 3 layers "lost" with on remaining. As for deployment matching fuel, time on station exceeding fuel is fine for exactly what you mentioned, but no, I reckon a lot of us don't just put ships in deep space or around tiny colonies that can't support 'em. One big colony or Rec / Maintenance center can service a goodly amount of colonies with a fashionable response time, assuming strategic placement of said areas that is.

[Veneke]

or just drop some deployment time. You have 120 days of deployment, but only 58 days of fuel.

I constantly see people say to drop deployment time to match fuel consumption and I don't understand this. Do people not ever keep ships on station for an extended period away from a recreational center/colony? I think the deployment time is fine as it is to give you a buffer for picketing JPs, escort missions for slower commercial ships, etc. Cutting it to 60 days will only net about 35 tons anyways due to the cube-root dependence of the crew quarters requirement.

This is a really good point. I'd add on that you can always have a tanker top up your warships. Max range is only max range with given fuel, additional deployment time essentially means additional effective range, assuming you've adequate fuel logistics.

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Dylan class Frigate      5,995 tons

This is a lovely ship but it could be far more beautiful with another 5,000 litres of fuel. 

Ah, but those missing 5 tons is part of what gives her character.

[Migi]

I've never understood the desire to have the same deployment time as fuel days, except to ensure that deployment is more than fuel days.
I always worry about needing to camp a jump point for extended periods when I think about reducing deployment time, so I normally go with 12 months for warships and up to a few days to a month for fighters.

That said for a small ship with low tech, and the mission goal of shooting down missiles I think 4 months is fine.

[xenoscepter]

I've never understood the desire to have the same deployment time as fuel days, except to ensure that deployment is more than fuel days.
I always worry about needing to camp a jump point for extended periods when I think about reducing deployment time, so I normally go with 12 months for warships and up to a few days to a month for fighters.

That said for a small ship with low tech, and the mission goal of shooting down missiles I think 4 months is fine.

 - I'll be honest, the idea of using my ships for impromptu Jump Point camping never occurred to me, as I so seldom guard my Jump Points at all. In VB6, I used PDCs with super long range missiles and a combination of DSTS and Picket Ships to defend large swaths of territory... Jump Points often included. In C#, I've switched over to a combination of STOs, fighter garrisons, and rapid response ships for the same purpose. With DSTSs and "Relay" Stations to go with it.

 - My problem with non-matching Deployment / Fuel is that I have tonnage that is "wasted" on Deployment range that I can't "use". Fuel Tankers have this odd issue whereby they can get shot at and die. My warships already have that same issue, which stems from the whole problem of "going into a war zone". I've done plenty of thinking on this, but a thread titled "Re: Early defence." doesn't seem an appropriate place to put it. I'll post my thoughts elsewhere upon request, if anyone wants to read them. Long & Short of it though: I'm not against Tankers, relying on Tankers isn't "wrong" or "worse" or "bad", I just don't like using 'em for the most part.

[Theoatmeal2 (OP)]

Here is the revision. Many of you are right it`s nearly a moot point building it but I still want some protection. I`ll do the STO and jump point defence as well.

Diana class Patrol Craft (P)      4,000 tons       108 Crew       387.4 BP       TCS 80    TH 240    EM 0
3000 km/s      Armour 4-22       Shields 0-0       HTK 23      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 12
Maint Life 2.19 Years     MSP 121    AFR 64%    IFR 0.9%    1YR 34    5YR 508    Max Repair 120 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Morale Check Required   

Eurojet M-240NP (1)    Power 240    Fuel Use 90.21%    Signature 240    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 295,000 Litres    Range 14.7 billion km (56 days at full power)

Rebeiro Armaments 10cm Railgun V20/C2 (4x4)    Range 20,000km     TS: 3,000 km/s     Power 3-2     RM 20,000 km    ROF 10       
Atlas Electronic Systems FC-1 Beam Fire Control (1)     Max Range: 80,000 km   TS: 3,000 km/s     66 56 47 38 28 19 9 0 0 0
Homberg-Schneider Pebble Bed Reactor R8 (1)     Total Power Output 8.1    Exp 5%

Atlas Electronic Systems M-1 Missile Detection Sensor (1)     GPS 10     Range 4m km    MCR 359k km    Resolution 1
Atlas Electronic Systems M-18 Navigation Sensor (1)     GPS 1000     Range 18.5m km    Resolution 100

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Did any of you actually discover low level aliens that are for example at Nuclear Thermal capacity.

[d.rodin]

Isnt it easier to use fighters&missles for Sol system protection early in game?
As far as i understand - main goal is to secure everything inside Saturn orbit, since Earth & Luna & Mars are first colonies and Jupiter & Saturn are primary fuel sources early in game.
So:
Fighters with deployment time ~3-6 days based on Earth / Luna / Mars.
~4 asteroid colonies in Asteroid Belt to cover all directions with DSTs and 1 Cargo + 1 Refueling + 1 Ordinance transfer stations with some fuel and ordinance supply for refueling and 2nd, 3rd, 4th strike capability - fighters return to those colonies for refueling and ordinance pickup after mission.
After some time same scheme repeats and extends using Jupiter and Saturn Moons.
In the end:
Earth / Mars / Venus / Ganymede / Callisto / Titan / Ceres with fighter bases + resupply colonies in Asteroid Belt + resupply colonies on Jupiter-Saturn orbit.